Services de conseil IoT : un entretien avec Piotr Beling sur le cas d'entreprise Corab

Digitalisation is a crucial step in the development of many companies within the industrial sector. It facilitates the integration of various systems, devices and machines to create a connected ecosystem that can work collaboratively. Digitalisation enables companies to collect, process, and analyse data in real time, providing actionable insights for informed decision-making. Additionally, it helps streamline operations by automating certain processes.

Il n'est pas étonnant que la digitalisation soit un moteur fondamental de compétitivité et de durabilité dans le Industrie 4.0 paysage. Cela peut toutefois sembler constituer un projet difficile pour certaines entreprises. De nombreux défis et décisions stratégiques jalonnent le parcours. C'est là que le conseil en informatique entre en jeu.

The role of an IT consulting company is to support organisations that want to effectively implement technology to meet their growing business needs and fulfil their goals. Apart from software delivery services, at Spyrosoft, we also offer IT consulting services for companies across various industries. In this article, we would like to share one of the examples of such a partnership – the story of our collaboration with Corab.

Nous avons demandé à Piotr Beling, Directeur Industry 4.0 – Solutions Numériques, de nous en dire plus sur la genèse de cette coopération, sur le contenu des services de conseil informatique et sur les résultats obtenus.

Dans quoi l'entreprise Corab est-elle spécialisée ?

Corab is a leading manufacturer of photovoltaic systems and a distributor of comprehensive solutions in the renewable energy sector for both businesses and individual clients. With over 30 years of experience designing structures and manufacturing products from aluminium and steel, Corab’s annual production capacity exceeds 4GW of solar energy.

Actuellement, en plus des panneaux photovoltaïques, Corab se spécialise également dans la production d'onduleurs solaires, de micro-onduleurs, de pompes à chaleur et de batteries. L'entreprise exporte ses systèmes vers 14 pays.

La stratégie de diversification du portefeuille de Corab implique la création de produits numériques destinés aux clients finaux et de dispositifs de surveillance à des fins d'analyse interne. Le système se compose de :

• une plateforme IoT basée sur le cloud,
• une application web interne à usage professionnel,
• une application mobile pour les utilisateurs finaux.

Comment Spyrosoft est-il devenu partenaire de conseil pour Corab ?

To keep up with the company’s fast development, it’s important to adapt internal infrastructure to handle increasingly complex processes. The digital transformation that covers various areas is essential for production management and maintaining the enterprise’s maturity. This challenge requires comprehensive knowledge of enterprise digitalisation processes, cloud solutions, and création de plateformes IoT. Corab recherchait un partenaire de conseil doté de l'expertise et de l'expérience nécessaires pour l'accompagner dans sa transformation numérique.

Our partnership with Corab began with a connection made during the CIO Net conference, where Konrad Weiske, CEO of Spyrosoft, spoke on behalf of the SoDA (an organisation that gathers Polish software development companies). Among the attendees was Tomasz Kopera, CIO of Corab, who recognised Spyrosoft’s potential as a consulting partner. The conversation during the event led to collaboration.

Quel est le périmètre de cette collaboration ?

Ensemble, nous avons identifié des actions pour accompagner le client dans deux domaines : la création d'une infrastructure informatique moderne pour l'entreprise et d'une plateforme pour les produits numériques proposés aux clients externes.

Conseil en informatique pour la construction d'architecture d'entreprise

Since Corab already had an IT infrastructure and internal processes, the first step was running an audit to determine which existing systems needed improvement and which parts should be updated or replaced. Spyrosoft’s experienced enterprise architecture specialist conducted an audit, helped the client select products, providers, licensing models, create software development and maintenance procedures, and developed information architecture.

At the end of this consulting stage, the client received in-depth documentation based on, amongst other things, the TOGAF internal systems architecture framework and a list of recommendations for further steps. We also prepared guidelines regarding vendor selection procedures, software development lifecycle, and digital product quality management procedures.

Conseil dans le choix d'un fournisseur de services cloud

As part of our consulting services, our cloud solution architect collaborated with Corab’s R&D team responsible for designing devices. His expertise in architecture design and acquaintance with best practices and patterns, combined with domain knowledge and insights from the Corab team, resulted in a high-level solution design (HLSD) of the IoT platform architecture. The proposed solution was agnostic and could be implemented on top of any cloud public. L'architecture a été conçue pour des opérations à long terme, un développement efficace et une intégration facile de nouveaux types d'appareils dans la plateforme IoT.

Qu'est-ce qu'un hub IoT et pourquoi est-il important ?

Many requirements should be taken into account when choosing a public cloud service provider. These include, for example, the maturity and capabilities of the offered cloud services in a given domain (e.g., services for IoT solutions), consistency with the client’s preferred tech stack, the support offered by the provider, or simply – the price.

We organised workshops where, together with the client, we defined the criteria for choosing a provider. We guided the Corab team through possible selection criteria, presented essential areas due to the type of solution, and advised on what to pay attention to. Then, together with the client, we created a scoring system based on the weights of individual criteria, and the client determined these priorities. The workshops resulted in the scoring of various providers according to these criteria, based on which a decision was made to select one of them.

Par conséquent, la phase de conseil dans le choix d'un fournisseur cloud a évolué vers le développement d'une solution dédiée, avec notre architecture proposée comme fondement.

Conseil informatique dans la sélection de la pile technologique

Le choix de la pile technologique appropriée est essentiel non seulement en termes de sélection des bons outils, mais aussi en termes de coûts.

Ideally, a dedicated solution should be built using a consistent, not too broad technology stack – one language for the backend solution and one framework for the front end. This allows easier and cost-conscious maintenance and development. Moreover, it is important to select popular technologies, as there is greater availability of specialists on the market. Specialists in niche technologies usually have higher rates. Also, technology selection is correlated with the choice of cloud service provider. Therefore, the best option is a widely known technology many programmers use.

De nombreux systèmes que nous développons sont destinés à rester disponibles sur le marché pendant longtemps – nous développons Solutions IoT that are expected to function for 20-30 years. Therefore, the stability and availability of technologies, frameworks and tools, as well as their support level, are also used as selection criteria. We want to ensure the client has the opportunity for continuous system development, which legacy technology will not hinder.

Conseil sur la création de solutions IoT

Awareness of the challenges and costs associated with building digital products is essential before taking the first step in the development process. As IT consultants, we discuss with the client how to create IoT platforms that are cost-effective, scalable, and easily expandable to new device types and what problems should be addressed at the beginning to avoid additional costs later on. It is also important to design reusable components during the design and implementation phases, significantly reducing the time of delivery of new business value.

Développement de normes de communication entre appareils

The design of the IoT architecture is significantly influenced by whether it will support one or multiple types of devices. Each type has individual parameters, which will be part of the telemetry, i.e., data sent to the backend. It is worthwhile designing a communication standard between devices and the solution’s backend at an early stage.

La norme de communication entre l'appareil et le backend peut couvrir des aspects tels que :
• type de communication – filaire ou sans fil : Wi-Fi, 4/5G, ou autres,
• protocole de communication – comme MQTT ou HTTP,
• format de données – JSON, Protobuf ou autre,
• les métadonnées prises en charge, comme la température, son format (Celsius, Fahrenheit) et sa plage,
Y a-t-il des clients des secteurs de l'industrie et de l'automobile qui ne seront pas intéressés par le MBD ?

With such a template, product teams responsible for devices know how to design them so that they can be added to the existing IoT system with minimal effort. Ideally, by adding a new device, the backend team only needs to handle new types of metadata and their semantics to translate raw data into information, which is then made available through APIs to mobile, web applications, or business intelligence tools.

Conseil en développement d'applications IoT

Speaking of end applications – mobile, web, or BI – it is worth noting that it is a good practice to provide a dedicated product for every user group. A home user of a heat pump will need different information from that of an installer or service technician. However, these digital products should communicate with one backend. The data or information transmitted through APIs to these applications differ (e.g., measurement value or notification) but come from one source – the previously discussed IoT platform.

Why is this so important? The answer is simple. We increase the efficiency of delivering new functionalities and business value to users. For example, a notification component written once is used to handle all types of devices; that reduces solution maintenance or cloud subscription costs while maintaining flexibility to adapt to changing market needs.

Comment Corab évalue-t-il notre coopération ?

We have received positive feedback from our client, which speaks volumes about their confidence level in Spyrosoft as their consulting partner. Our specialists play a crucial role in important strategic areas, and their contributions to Corab’s decision-making processes are highly valued. Our knowledge and expertise enable us to set technological trends and implement the best practices and standards, making us a valuable asset to the company.

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